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Prowl was going to wear a rut into the floor at this rate. Faces, shocked and angry and frightened, flew past his optics whenever he closed them, and when he opened them, the overpowering lights tore through his head like so many claws. Guilt tied his spark in painful knots as he paced back and forth at a manic pace.C He couldn’t focus, couldn’t think, couldn’t sleep.
When he stood in front of his office door for approximately the eight hundredth time in the past hour, he considered trying again, but decided against it. His quarters weren’t that far, but the first shift had just ended and there were definitely going to be Autobots in the halls.
“Why weren’t we out there?”
“We should have helped them!”
“Coward!”
“We coulda run those creeps off without breakin’ a sweat!”
“C’mon, Prowler, what were ya thinkin’?”
Honestly, Prowl wasn’t sure what was worse: the ones who were angry with him, or the ones who were angry with themselves. He’d made the rational choice, he knew- the Ark was tight on fuel and spare parts, and the storms on this planet made long range comms too unreliable. It was safer to keep everyone close by.
When they received word of the Decepticons’ attack, sixty people were already dead, and the survivors had started evacuating. By the time they would have arrived, there would be no way left to help. They had everything to lose and nothing to gain. The numbers don’t lie.
That doesn’t mean they can’t be wrong, though.
Prowl sat at his desk with a wearied sigh, trying to dispel the faces from his memory. The organics’ shock and horror when they realized the Autobots wouldn’t be able to help. The Autobots’ faces, when they realized they wouldn’t be able to help. Optimus Prime, watching the local news broadcast with his spark so heavy it nearly pinned everyone else to the floor.
The Autobots knew who to blame for it all, of course. There weren’t that many people who could talk Optimus down from trying to help someone. But that’s exactly what Optimus kept him around for, wasn’t it? He was the cold, calculated one who could tell him no, they can’t afford to help these people. The practical one who kept his moralistic teammates in check. The one who held them back from doing the right thing.
It was exhausting.
Prowl groaned and dragged himself awake at the sound of the chime on his door. He must have fallen asleep at some point- and evidently knocked Primus knew how many datapads to the floor. He’d only been asleep for a few hours; he didn’t know if he was supposed to be grateful for that or not. His backstrut creaked and croaked in objection as he sat up at his desk.
Maybe one of the commanders had come to tell him how badly he’d messed up this time. Or maybe Optimus had come to wax poetic about how much he didn’t blame him. Or maybe it was a subordinate demanding answers. Mentally, he braced himself for the worst.
The door chimed again, and Prowl grimaced. Time to face the music.
He pinged the door’s microcontroller to open it without getting up, only to find Bumblebee, of all mecha, standing in the threshold with two energon cubes in his hands. The script Prowl had been preparing fell to pieces in his mind.
“Um, hey,” Bumblebee started awkwardly. His optics widened noticeably when he saw the state of Prowl’s office, and likely the bot himself. “Are you, uh- you alright?”
“I am operating within acceptable parameters,” Prowl lied brazenly. “Did you need something?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing, actually.” Bumblebee set the cubes down on Prowls desk before taking a seat across from him, concern written across every line of his face. “There’s some…” he paused for a moment, glancing sidelong in the direction of the rec room. “There’s some harsh words flying in the rec room at the moment. I wanted to make sure you had the chance to fuel before you went out there.”
“Oh.” Prowl, for his part, was just as unprepared for this as Bumblebee evidently was. He lifted the cube gingerly and eyed it for a moment, not particularly inclined to drink it despite how low he must be running. Eventually, though, he began to drink, to Bumblebee’s visible relief. “Thank you.”
The smaller Autobot smiled at him. “No problem.”
They sat like that for a while, fuelling together while a storm whipped itself up outside. They didn’t speak, at first, letting the minutes tick by in companionable silence. But, Prowl’s curiosity eventually got the better of him.
“Shouldn’t you be angry with me?”
Bumblebee sighed and averted his gaze. “Maybe,” he provided helpfully. He drummed his fingers against his energon cube for a moment, clearly unimpressed with his own response. “You do a lot of good work, Prowl. And I don’t think it’s right to ignore the good work you do when you make a mistake,” the minibot reasoned, “even a really big one. Think about how many planets we’ve been to- how many battles we’ve fought! You must have saved hundreds, or thousands, of lives over your career.” Bumblebee waved his arms, gesturing to the ship around them. “Especially ours. Everyone’s talking about how we should have fought and that you’re an idiot for not letting us, but if we had fought, I know it would’ve been you calling the shots. We wouldn’t have made it half this far if it weren’t for you.”
Prowl nodded at him, heroically fighting the urge to just cry.
“That…” he started once he was confident in his voice again, “that means a lot to me, Bumblebee. Thank you.” He hung his head for a moment, closing his optics. Knowing what he did about Bumblebee, this would probably be the part where he offered Prowl a hand, or some other physical contact. But if he let that happen, then he would just cry, so he kept his optics closed for a moment.
He didn’t know if he agreed with the other mech, really. ‘You only messed up this once’ doesn’t bring nearly a hundred people back to life. But the fact that Bumblebee was here, that he’d at least tried to help; that was important. It meant… something.
“Hey,” Bumblebee started, pulling him from his thoughts, “I have a patrol starting in a few minutes. Can I come back tomorrow?”
“Of course,” Prowl answered without a second thought. He was, technically, very busy, but he was sure he could carve out a few minutes of his time; especially if it helped him work through this guilt. “I’d be happy to see you here again.”
“Cool!” Bumblebee winked at him before he turned to leave. “It’s a date,” he laughed.
Prowl laughed with him.